This invention relates to improvements in ventilating deodorizing filters to be used with toilets in house trailers, campers, mobile homes, boats or other installations wherein confined living spaces and inadequate ventilation make fetid air particularly disagreeable. The invention is herein illustratively described by reference to its presently preferred embodiment; however, it will be recognized that modifications and changes with respect to details may be made without departing from the essential features involved.
The concept of toilet bowl, forced-air ventilators in stationary installations is old in the art, as is that of movable filter units that can be positioned next to a toilet stool to operate from an external power source with the toilet in use without benefit of exterior venting of the effluvium. Examples of such ventilating deodorizers are found in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,774,156, Root (1930); 3,366,979, Johnston (1968); 3,857,119, Hunnicutt, Jr., (1974); 3,869,737, Stevenson (1975). There has long been continued recognition of need for a fully versatile and compact self-powered portable deodorizer unit of this type. Seemingly, the efforts of many over the years to devise such a unit with advantages outweighing disadvantages sufficiently to precipitate widespread adoption and use have left considerable room for improvement and innovation, particularly in combining such attributes as operating convenience, compactness, versatility and efficiency applicable in the widely varying spatial arrangements and types of toilet stool installations to be served; practical and visually attractive conformation that is both convenient to carry and position, and is compact for storage and for operative placement in confined spaces; and a unit easy to clean and service so as to encourage its consistent presence and usage.
A broad object hereof is to achieve these and related attributes in a portable, fully self-contained toilet ventilating air deodorizer suitable for commercial production and of general utility. More especially, it is an object to provide an internally powered blower-filter unit of such compact and versatile configuration that a unit of one design may be mass-produced to serve most, if not all house trailers, cabin cruisers, campers, cottages and similar installations having widely varying space accommodations.
A further object hereof is to provide a novel organization and housing arrangement for a retractable air inlet nozzle head and duct receiving assembly, plenum chamber, filter, and suction blower in such a deodorizer unit enabling the device to be of highly compact and conveniently proportioned exterior form while possessed of high volumetric air processing capability for its size and energy requirements. A related object is to devise such a unit with a compactly stowable air intake duct and nozzle assembly which, when extended, can be elevated to any required height, and rotated by any necessary amount relative to the unit cannister or housing, the placement of which is often governed by space limitations, in order to conduct effluvium from the toilet bowl to the filter unit, and also serve as a steadying support for the device in whatever position it is placed for convenience adjacent the stool. Thus, the unit can be positioned conveniently in any location, however confined the space and when used on a boat or in a camper underway, the unit is stabilized against tipping over. Moreover, when fully retracted and oriented with its intake nozzle in an inboard stowed position, the intake duct and nozzle assembly is essentially accommodated within the physical outline and profile of the cannister and thereby does not add projecting surfaces or objectionable height or width to the compact unit; and moreover in that position may be used as a convenient carrying handle.
Functional, segmented construction of the housing or cannister portion of the deodorizer unit, together with related placement of principal components within the same, facilitates assembly and disassembly and convenient access to such components for inspection and servicing thereof when desired.